My Massive Pony VN planning v0.1001

My Massive Pony VN Planning

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0. Most prevalent issues

1. Overview

        1.1 What the heck's a VN?

        1.2 Goals

2. Story Planning

        2.1 Overview

        2.2 Routes

                2.2.1 Twilight Sparkle

                2.2.2 Applejack

                2.2.3 Fluttershy

                2.2.4 Rainbow Dash

                2.2.5 Rarity

                2.2.6 Pinkie Pie

        2.3 Bonus scenes

3. Asset Planning

        3.0 HUMAN RESOURCES

        3.1 Visual assets

                3.1.1 Character Portraits

                3.1.2 CGs

                3.1.3 GUI, Backgrounds and others

        3.2 Audio assets

                3.2.1 Background music

                3.2.2 Sound effects

                3.2.3 UI sounds

        3.3 Programming assets

4. Legal Stuff

 

0. Most Prevalent Issues

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(24/06/12) Currently to even start on the project we need a better management system for people. Check the newly added HUMAN RESOURCES section in asset planning to check if my solution to the issue is alright.

Also this is just me but I feel like we need some sort of an event to signal the start of the project, because while one particular member has been pushing for us to begin, it still feels like it'd be best to wait for a while. That, and this design document feels like a place to just dump my thoughts on the project rather than an actual design document, but whatever.

 

1. Overview

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This is the planning document for a Visual Novel based around My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic with Macro/Microphilia themes. Kind of a strange mix but hey, if you aren't interested you probably wouldn't be looking at this document anyways. Here we'll be planning the development of this Visual Novel and hoping it gets finished someday.

 

1.1 What the heck's a VN?

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The thing we want to make at the end is a Visual Novel. For those unaccustomed to what these are, think of it as a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book but as a video game with music, pictures and even voices to help you get into the story. Specifically however, we're making one with a Dating Simulator feel to it, and with porn, so that classifies it as an H-Game or an Eroge.

 

More popular versions of visual novels include common adventure games like the Phoenix Wright series and 9 hours 9 persons 9 doors, but the true definition of a visual novel is one that doesn't have the gameplay aspect in it, just words. If you don't understand, I suggest playing Saya no Uta. It's a rather standard and quite short visual novel that has helped introduce the medium to many. If you're still not sure and/or interested in others, Katawa Shoujo is a pretty popular one that fits the dating simulator aspect of what we're doing.

 

1.2 Goals

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(to be filled once we start properly)

 

2. Story Planning

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Ideally, the story should appeal to everybody. It should include all the aspects that come with the macro/micro fetish (domination, gentle etc.) and due to the nature of this medium, the player can choose what they like fairly easily through which route they choose to follow (e.g. if they want a gentler macro, they'd go for the Fluttershy route, playful - Pinkie Pie etc.). Of course, writers decide the end result of what takes place, but keep in mind of what the player would want to see. This goes double for the porn scenes. Carefully decide what happens, try not to make it repetitive.

 

Also due to the nature of a VN, most writing is either going to be description or dialog. Dialog for both the pony you're talking to AND the player. Make sure to keep both in character depending on what route they chose. Make the player's dialog reflect the thoughts of who you think would play that route.

 

2.1 Overview

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In very early talks, it's been decided the story would follow a shrunken human in Ponyville as the starting concept. Many things are still undecided, but once we reach a consensus, we'll put it here. Some major decisions that need to be filled before anyone writes include:

 

Actual context: How did you get here? Why are you so small? Do you get found immediately, or do you have to actually earn the attention of the ponies?

Size/Scale: How big are you compared to the ponies? 1:10? 1:100 (This is the scale used in the most popular Macro/Micro based video game (Shrink High))?

Mortality: Do you die instantly when you get squished? Or do you just turn into a pancake and re-inflate later, closer to the cartoon nature of the show?

Overall atmosphere: Should it be closer to the show, with everything being cheery and happy? Or should we aim for a more realistic and grittier approach?

Awareness: Has the protagonist watched the show before? Well obviously the players have, but should the protagonist have? Having awareness raises stupid 4th wall breaking issues that frankly don't belong in something like this but would it seem too condescending to the player if we say they haven't?

 

Minor decisions will also be included as they're made.

 

2.2 Routes

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Since the target (probably niche) demographic would be males interested in the show, it's been decided that the main routes available should focus on the "Mane 6" with each of the members being the focus of the story. Being a dating simulator, it would be obvious why that is. Secondary characters such as the Male Ponies, Spike, the CMC, the Princesses etc. SHOULD get a scene or two, but should also be entirely optional to the player as Bonus scenes.

 

Routes are decided through the choices you make in the game, setting off flags to display different bits of writing later in the story and so on. Please be aware you shouldn't be "railroading" the story and cramming words in the players mouth, but you also shouldn't make a choice appear for every phrase the protagonist says either. Try to find a balance in deciding the importance of a choice and when a choice should appear. Also, remember that this isn't like a writing.com interactive where you control the story like an omnipotent god. At most the player can control is what the protagonist does or what the protagonist says, but don't dismiss their choices completely either. We don't want to pull a BioWare where nothing matters until the last decision of the game for the ending.

 

The entire game from start to finish should take around 4 to 5 hours. It seems short enough so that the writers wouldn't run out of material, but long enough for the story to be all crammed together with no leeway.

 

Keep in mind that routes do NOT have to be like an aisle in a supermarket: scenes can overlap between routes for group meetups and earlier choices can come back to bite you in the ass. However, there should be an indication that you have chosen a selected path within the first hour or so, and that once you get past about 40% of the game, the route SHOULD be unique to the others. So with six routes, and with maybe 2~3 endings for each route (yes, bad endings exist) there'd be a total of 24 hours of reading to be done. (Please note I said reading, not writing. Writing would obviously take much longer, but sometimes people forget that people read much much faster than they write.)

 

Obviously the tone of the story should be different depending on which route you're on but romance should be a given for all of them. Try to add in some >feels, particularly near the end of the game. Hell, it can be an emotional rollercoaster if you wanted it to be, but make sure it fits the route and your character.

 

Main route descriptions will be completed by their writers. To start it off though, the writing "manager" should use the following form, putting down tags as a method of brainstorming.

 

2.2.1 Twilight Sparkle

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Tags:

 

2.2.2 Applejack

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Tags:

 

2.2.3 Fluttershy

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Tags:

 

2.2.4 Rainbow Dash

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Tags:

 

2.2.5 Rarity

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Tags:

 

2.2.6 Pinkie Pie

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Tags:

 

2.3 Bonus Scenes

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By Bonus Scenes I don't mean parts of the story where they appear and have a nice chat with you, those can appear as much as they are needed during the story (e.g. Applejack's route may involve several interactions with Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh), I mean porn scenes. For VN veterans, these are optional CGs unlocked after completing the game or sometimes even during a route as a "bad" ending.

 

Now a priority should be set so we don't end up including every single background pony and thus make the project impossible to finish. Generally it should only be recurring secondary characters (not background ponies) that end up making it into this, with the one exception being Lyra/Bonbon since in fanon, they're even more developed than say...any stallions.

 

But really, these are just extras, and if we were to run out of time, none of these need to be in there. We can patch them in later (?) as expansion packs or something if needed.

 

3. Asset Planning

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Aside from the obvious scripts the writers have to hand in to the proofreaders/editors and then the programmers, we need art and music. It isn't called a VISUAL Novel for nothing. Art will of course be the most difficult to obtain with maybe one good artist amongst the community. This is what happens with niche fetishes and even niche-er interests.

 

3.0 HUMAN RESOURCES

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3.0 because I somehow neglected the most important part while writing this in the first time.

 

How I think would be best to manage people is to arrange contributors to the project in groups depending on what they are contributing, with one person overseeing each group. Also, it's preferred that at least two people oversee each section, so we might need more people.

 

This is a list of people we have so far on the top of my head. Please be aware NONE of these people have actually said they will commit to the project, and some haven't even heard of it:

 

*Writers:

Neohoss

HPLameCraft

StrawberrySwirl

Saatchi

LicoriceTwist

Guest123

Shala

 

*Artists:

Khorme

RobotAnon

Schweppes

 

*Musicians:

Patashu

 

*Programmers:

Ctrl-S

RobotAnon

Patashu

 

*Other/Planners:

ShadTheCrazed (Plan/Design)

RedPony (Flash)

 

Some people are on there twice, yes. I'd mention something about taking on twice the work but I really can't since these people haven't officially agreed to commit.

 

In addition to this, please be aware that this method sets up a kind of hierarchy. Writers basically have the most power, being given the ability to "direct" the entire visual novel, but they should check with the programmers to see if certain things are possible. Artists (Both musical and visual) and Programmers share a lower tier, where they produce work depending on what the writers tell them to. I'd rather there not be debates on having say a piece of art not matching the writer's image in their head, but it's probably going to happen. In situations like this, the artist decides whether he wants to re-do it or not. If he doesn't, then the writing may need to change slightly to reflect it. You can't please everybody.

 

The one "Manager" of each group is to collate assets from everyone else, and to...well, crack the whip. It is decided by votes of the people in each group and they have the final say in disputes should they arise. Mediators for inter-group conflicts can be drawn from the people in the Others group. I know with stuff like this it sounds like there should be some person who oversees EVERYTHING and gets it done but I'd rather that be a group of people to minimise disputes.

 

3.1 Visual Assets

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Most of the concerns in this area will be actually finding more people who are willing to do this. Aside from that though there are small concerns like conflicting art styles and artistic skill that can get solved once the groups are formed.

 

3.1.1 Character Portraits

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These will be what you see other than the background for most of the game. It's basically what I call a "sprite" of a character. In RPGs they appear next to the text boxes to show who's talking, but we're going for something like the Phoenix Wright approach where it's a picture on the screen behind the textbox.

 

For this we'll be needing several animations for each pony featured in the game, and one or two for each emotion used. Adding a talking animation for each emotion will also be necessary. Also even one off characters will need them, maybe with less emotion animations.

 

These will most likely be traced from show vectors or what else, but keeping in mind this is a macro based visual novel, we may need to completely redraw them so that the issue of perspective is handled accordingly. Wouldn't be immersive if the writing states you're on the ground and the picture displayed is you being at eye level with the pony now, would it.

 

3.1.2 CGs

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These are when the scene is completely redrawn. It isn't just background + reused talking animation, it's a completely redone scene. These will probably used to highlight specific moments in the story and DEFINITELY for the porn scenes. As a result, not much animation is to occur but it can change slightly. Play a few VNs to get what I mean by this.

 

Since we don't know what's going to happen in the story, it is unsure how much of these we will need but the bulk of the work should be in this section.

 

3.1.3 GUI, Backgrounds and others

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Unless we're sticking with RenPy's ugly default UI, we're going to need bits and pieces for buttons on menus, the chatbox, etc. A bit of design might be needed here, along with some fiddling in the programming department.

 

Backgrounds are another important part of the art assets. Again, due to the fact we don't know what the story is, we're unsure of how many backgrounds we need. In terms of style I say just keep it similar to the show with flat colours, no outlines and low gradients.

 

3.2 Audio Assets

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Due to RenPy, most of the things we get should either be in .ogg format. I'm not shelling out cash for a .mp3 license.

 

3.2.1 Background Music

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Obviously quite important to help set the mood. Should there be a theme for each character? A theme for each place? A theme for each time of day? It all depends on the atmosphere and immersion of the story.

 

Using royalty free music is an option here, but I'm not too sure about the legal stuff involved so making our own is the safest bet.

 

3.2.2 Sound effects

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Besides the booms, crash, whistles and whatnot that can probably be found royalty-free on some websites, the most interesting thing to tackle here is voice. Should there be voice at all? There's no possible way we could get the voice actors to say these lines out loud, and don't even think about splicing the show's audio to say a certain word like in those youtube poops. The closest we can get is something like in Animal Crossing where we get their voice and jumble it to gibberish.

 

3.2.3 UI Sounds

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This shouldn't be that much of a hassle. Just stuff for a click, closing of a menu, yada yada.

 

3.3 Programming Assets

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It has been decided that we are going to use RenPy. This is some sort of an engine that runs on Python. I have no idea how it works yet. Will update this once I do.

 

4. Legal Stuffs

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I'm not exactly sure what the repercussions of making something based off a copyrighted franchise is but I'd prefer not to have to deal with lawsuits and whatnot. This project should be free and I'm sure there's some law saying if we don't make money off it we're fine but should we get a C&D...well, I'm not sure. Maybe we'll just stop. But let's hope this stuff never happens. I mean PonyKart and Brony documentaries have gone off without a hitch, this shouldn't too.